Comfort Food
by The Musician's Quill
Summary: Written for the 10 hurt comfort challenge at LiveJournal. Prompt: Comfort Food. After a rough case, Spencer and Aaron share a meal.


**Disclaimer: If I owned it, I would be able to buy groceries.**

_Here there be (mild) slash and fluffity fluffy fluff! Don't like, don't read, don't flame. Danka!_

It was only six in the evening when Spencer Reid stumbled into his apartment, but for the utterly spent FBI agent, this was of negligible importance.

Cases involving children always hit the team hard, but never had they encountered so traumatizing a case as this—a seventeen year old serial killer, preying on your boys and girls in New York City preschools and kindergartens.

The images of those young bodies, beaten and left curled up on their parent's doorsteps as if they were only sleeping… they would haunt Spencer's nightmares for years to come.

Shuddering, unable to suppress a broken sob, Spencer dropped his bag carelessly in the doorway and staggered towards the shower. It felt as if this case had left a layer of filth on him that, he was afraid, might never come off.

The running shower masked the sight and sound of the tears he finally let go, now that he was in the safety and privacy of his own home.

He grieved for those young children, gone before they had a chance to live, for their families who could barely even begin to comprehend the loss.

He mourned for their unsub, the young woman orphaned at five in a car wreck, then raped and impregnated at fifteen. She had never the less cared for the baby, only to have it taken from her by sickness—the final blow which had caused her to snap.

He cried for the team, his own family, who must see such things; for Aaron, his lover, who took the loss of every life upon himself.

And Spencer cried for himself, at the loss he experienced on the job and the loss he would experience if he decided he couldn't handle it anymore, gave it up.

As the hot water began to run out, so did the tears. The young man hurriedly finished bathing, planning to make a pot of coffee and read until morning—there was no chance he would be able to sleep tonight.

It was only after he shut off the water that Spencer heard the slight clanging that accompanied cooking echoing from the kitchen.

Knowing only a handful of people—read, his team—with access to his apartment, and highly doubtful that any criminal would take the time to cook before getting on with it, Reid nonetheless grabbed his gun after throwing on some comfortable clothes—sweats and a Star Trek t-shirt—before padding towards the kitchen.

As he though there was little need to worry. Spencer deposited his gun on a side table and watched with a small smile from the shadows of the hallway as Aaron Hotchner puttered around his kitchen. The man had discarded his suit jacket over the back of a kitchen chair, donned a full apron and rolled up the crisp white sleeves of his shirt. Spencer couldn't help but feel his mouth water as he watched those powerful lower arms and large, gun-calloused hands pull rolls from the over, stir the contents of a Crockpot, straighten the table.

He was the very picture of domesticity, and Spencer felt his heart swell.

As Aaron stood pondering the rolls with his usual intensity, Spencer slipped from his hiding place and wrapped his arms around his lover's waist.

"I figured neither of us wanted to be alone tonight," Aaron murmured, bringing his hands around to grasp Spencer's forearms, locking the two of them into a sort of backwards embrace.

"I brought us some beef stew," he continued. "My mother always made it when she knew Sean or I would be having a tough day. It was our comfort food."

Against his back, Spencer smiled. Having grown up in an environment where he primarily had to look after himself and his mother, the care and consideration his lover never ceased in giving warmed him more than he could ever possibly say.

Never once letting go his hold around Aaron's waist, Spencer spun so he could look the man in the eyes.

The dark brown gaze, usually so hard, now conveyed concern and absolute tenderness for his young mate, and in that light, Spencer leaned forward, pressing his lips against Aaron's in a gentle kiss which expressed what his usual plethora of words could not.

The two remained in their embrace for a long while, comforting and being comforted. After a time they convened at the table, enjoying the hearty stew and fluffy rolls.

As they curled around each other in bed later that night, warm and content together in body and mind, Spencer knew that, as long as he and his family, he and Aaron, had each other, they could overcome anything.


End file.
